Was Eastern Europe always poor and irrelevant, /his/? I don't

>>2486912
There's nothing there. Every where on earth where there is nothing is irrelevent. Central Asia, russian steppe, flyover US states

>>2486912
The Balkans became poor after the Ottomans conquered them.
The rest of what i assume you mean by eastern Europe became poor after the deluge.
Russia... Historically other than a few rich city states it was always poor.
Keep in mind, pre it's in comparison to western Europe of the time, so pre industrial, the differences would not be that big (or at least as big as you imply), of course urban areas were always richer.

WW1 ravaged eastern Europe. Poland, Serbia and Ukraine were battlefields.
WW2 ravaged it again, keep in mind this isn't like the damage done to say western European cities. Each city was badly damaged several times. Germans planned a systematic destruction of Warsaw.
And in the end communists went in to butcher the economies, not only that but add flight of human capital (educated people running away so they don't get killed when communists collectivize their property), and absence of the Marshall plan. For Russian satellites it was economic colonization. For Albania it was bunkers. For Yugoslavia it was "self (worker) managed" companies running huge deficits to keep wages artificially high without giving workers the intensive to be efficient, so the economy was run on US loans.

>>2486912
Didn't Anne of Kiev call France a primitive country with dark churches, crappy houses and primitive customs?
Yeah, this was a long time ago, but still.

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>>2486912
We reached for democracy too soon
(and myriad of other reasons).

>>2487232
>WE

>>2487244
Why does that bother you?

Well according to your map England or Sweden was also a shithole back then.

If you look at the map you can see Buda and Krakkow both started printing earlier than say Vienna.

And both countries got ravaged by wars far more than others in the following centuries, making records dissappear and books burn, so its hardly a legit comparison.

We know for example that Matthias Corvinus' library was second only behind Vaticans, but only a few dozen works survive to date.

>>2486912
>Ireland and scorland

kek

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Define Eastern Europe.

The Czech lands, Poland and Hungary were all major players from the XI. to the XVI. century, being great Catholic Kingdoms with lots of natural resources, dynasties that married and exchanged with any western ones, and frank supporters of the Christiian cause.

Some of the earliest recorded Gothic architecture outside of France is from Hungary and Bohemia. And it was the Polish and Hungarian courts that first took up the Renaissance outside of Italy.

These three kingdoms were certainly not lagging behind. They of course had somewhat less populations, and except Polands coast did not, could not really parttake in the major sea trades, which among many other reasons contributes to the West radically diverging from them from the XVI. century and onwards.

If you read medieval travelogues, while Polish and Hungarian lands do strike somewhat undevelopped from the X. to early XII. century, take into account thats when these states started existing at all. But by the XIII. century you will read no such account. When the mongols raided these countries, one Western chronicler lamented the "loss of such great powerful and famous kingdoms".

Hell if anything Poland and Hungary were both envy of Westerners with their excellent continental climate and great farmlands, famine, very familiar in Westeen Europe practically unknown in these parts, and their rulers regularly described as having immense wealth and power drawing much from the rich mines producing salt, silver, copper, iron and gold.

>>2487143

> Didn't Anne of Kiev call France a primitive country with dark churches, crappy houses and primitive customs?

Yes, yes she did.

Basically, the Mongols razed nearly every major urban center in Russia to the ground, up until then, eastern Europe was pretty on par with western Europe.

Hell, Hungary was far richer than Britain until the Ottomans, they had like a quarter of the European silver production.

Low iq

>>2486912
Russia and everything east of Prussia?
yes
South-east Europe (i.e. former Byzantine areas)?
no

The rise of German, Italian, Scandinavian, and Turkish military and economic hegemony turned the region into colonies from which resources were extracted cheaply, friendly despots were propped up, and local independent economies and urbanization were suppressed in favor of privileging aristocratic landowners and their foreign patrons.

Basically what happened to Africa later.